Tanya S. Chutkan
How Judge Chutkan decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In False Claims Act cases she enforces the statutory 'obligation' requirement strictly: unassessed regulatory penalties, or fees for applications a defendant never filed, are not an 'established duty' and cannot support a reverse false claim. The FCA is not a vehicle for garden-variety regulatory violations.
“an unassessed potential penalty for regulatory noncompliance does not constitute an obligation that gives rise to a viable FCA claim.”
She construes contracts to give effect to every term and rejects readings that render words superfluous; an interpretation that makes a contractual phrase ('new funding') meaningless will lose.
“the term “new funding” only bears meaning if it means that the funding must come from a new source.”
Procedural preferences
At summary judgment on a Title VII / employment-discrimination claim she follows Brady: once the employer offers a legitimate non-discriminatory reason, she does not decide the prima facie case and trains the analysis on pretext. What matters is the decisionmaker's honest belief, not whether the employee actually committed the misconduct -- the court will not act as a 'super-personnel department.'
“the relevant inquiry is whether SAA honestly believed Ye was insubordinate and disciplined her based on that belief.”
When she dismisses a complaint for failure to plead essential facts, she dismisses WITHOUT prejudice (leaving room to amend) rather than granting a defendant's request for dismissal with prejudice.
“the court will deny the motion insofar as WMATA asks for dismissal with prejudice.”
Cautions
In suits over a denied visa, naming the State Department / CBP / agency heads instead of the consular officer is fatal: consular nonreviewability gives consular officers exclusive authority, so the named defendants cannot redress the injury and standing fails. (Delay/failure-to-act suits are a different matter.)
“Because none of the Defendants have the authority to bring about that result by invalidating the denial of her visa applications, Plaintiff has not established that her injury would be redressed by a favorable decision here.”
Under the Alien Tort Statute she requires a concrete domestic-conduct nexus to the statute's focus; general U.S.-based corporate activity, financing, or wiring money abroad does not confer statutory standing (Nestle/Kiobel). She also insists standing be shown claim-by-claim, not 'in gross.'
“lacking a domestic connection, Foreign Plaintiffs cannot bring an ATS claim against any Defendant.”
Motion outcomes
Counted from classified signed orders only. Percentages are shown only where the sample is large enough to be meaningful; smaller samples are reported as raw counts.
| Motions to dismiss N = 5 |
Granted: 3Granted in part: 1Moot / procedural: 1 | counts only |
| Summary judgment N = 3 |
Granted: 1Granted in part: 2 | counts only |
A "1 of 1" is one ruling, not a tendency. Treat small samples as illustrative, not predictive.
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“For the foregoing reasons, the court will GRANT Defendant's Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 24. An Order will accompany this Memorandum Opinion.”
“For these reasons, the court will GRANT Defendant's Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 6. A corresponding Order will accompany this Memorandum Opinion.”
“the court will GRANT Defendants' Motion to Dismiss Counts I through III Under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6), ECF No. 162, and Defendants' Motion to Dismiss the Amended Complaint Under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6), ECF No. 164.”
“Accordingly, the court will DENY Defendants' Motion to Dismiss Under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(2) and 12(b)(5), ECF No. 166, as moot.”
“the court will grant WMATA's motion insofar as it seeks dismissal of Plaintiff's Title VII claims, but the court will deny the motion insofar as WMATA asks for dismissal with prejudice.”
“the court will GRANT in part and DENY in part Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment, ECF No. 22”
“and GRANT in part and DENY in part Plaintiff's Cross Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, ECF No. 27.”
“Therefore, the court will GRANT SAA's motion for summary judgment.”
Caseload & timing
From public federal docket records for this judge.
Sampled recent assignments (filed 2026, mostly pending) span prisoner habeas (Jones v. United States), civil/criminal forfeiture (US v. Approximately 1,210,734 USDT), civil rights (PETA v. Clarke), FOIA (Public Citizen v. FMCSA), APA/agency review (Biden Jr. v. DOJ), Other Statutory Actions (Parker v. Ginnie Mae), federal criminal (US v. Ponson), and miscellaneous mc-dockets (In re Subpoena). This is a qualitative character sample, NOT a counted nature-of-suit distribution.